I was talked into getting this pathetic blue CT tonight. I wasn't even sure he was gonna survive the 10 minute ride home.

If he is alive when I wake up, I would like to know the best way to treat him.

His cup was full of uneatten food and his fins that rotted off of him.
And he was having a very hard time trying to move his body up to reach the water level. He was kind of bent, like his back part couldn't move. Currently he is resting on the side of the cup with his head tilted up.

Housing
What size is your tank? 1G QT but its barely has an inch of water since he was really struggling to reach the water level
What temperature is your tank? 71
Does your tank have a filter? no
Does your tank have an air stone or other type of aeration? no
Is your tank heated? Not enough water in it to use a heater. I though about floating him in a cup, but I honestly was not sure he could survive being moved back into a cup again.
What tank mates does your betta fish live with? none

Food
What type of food do you feed your betta fish? NA
How often do you feed your betta fish? NA
Maintenance
How often do you perform a water change? NA
What percentage of the water do you change when you perform a water change? NA
What type of additives do you add to the water when you perform a water change? Stress coat

Water Parameters:
Have you tested your water? If so, what are the following parameters?

Ammonia: tested his walmart water and it turned as dark green as it could get...which is 8.0
Nitrite:
Nitrate:
pH:
Hardness:
Alkalinity:

Symptoms and Treatment
How has your betta fish's appearance changed? Fin rot BAD, kinda acts like he has SBD and had rapid gil and mouth movement. It has slowed down a bit since I got him. He frantically moves his fins but does not seem to go anywhere.
How has your betta fish's behavior changed?
When did you start noticing the symptoms?
Have you started treating your fish? If so, how? Epsom and stress coat but I am not sure he actually has SBD or if there is something else going on. He looks like he has stress stripes but they are white.
Does your fish have any history of being ill?
How old is your fish (approximately)?

Should I stay with epsom or switch to AQ Salt? Should I try and get him back into the cup to float him in a heated tank? I think trying to get him into the cup may finish him off - since a cup doesnt really fit into the 1 gallon. Plus then he would be floating in a tank with another male and that might stress him out too much. On the other hand, it supposed to be -20F today and its gonna get chilly in here.

Tiki, that just doesn't look good, does it? Poor guy! He made it through the night? I'm amazed.

My advice is float him. He needs the warmth more than anything else and I don't know if he'd even notice another male around. As long as the other male can't jump into the cup.

He's so weak that you should be able to just use your hand to gently pick him up out of his water and lower him into the cup. He needs warmth. I don't know what level of epsom salts you're at but if you can, slowly bump it up to 3 tsps per gallon (use the 1 gallon premix method). Honestly, I don't know if he'd survive any medical treatment or if it would even help. My best advice is make him comfortable. If he drastically improves, then try the tetracycline on him.

Poor baby, I can see why John wanted you to rescue him. At the very least, he deserves to pass in clean water.

Epsom probably won't help because he's too sick. :( Is his fin rot really bad, like large chunks of his fins are coming off? Are you finding bits of fin on the bottom of the tank? Epsom salts will help with the fin rot to some degree. Not as much as AQ salt but I'm concerned about internal bacterial infections and buildup of fluids in the organs. If that's his main problem, AQ salts would only make that part worse.

Epsom can sometimes take days to work- I'm afraid he has ammonia poisoning, which would explain the rapid breathing.

Unfortunately, I think the only thing that can help at this point is just clean water- Epsom won't hurt him, as it's gentle so you can continue that if you wish, but I'm not sure that will help any either.

If anything, AmQuel is recommended to use as conditioner when they have ammonia poisoning.

I wish you luck, and I hope he gets better.. keep us updated!

Sakura beat me :P

It does look like he has rot- but sometimes with ammonia poisoning you will see torn and jagged fins- possibility it's both?